Today we are focusing on choosing the motherboard.

What is a motherboard?

A motherboard is exactly what it sounds like.  A mother of boards!

Your motherboard is a large circuit board for all of your other parts to connect to.

When you plug your: Headphones/Keyboard/Mouse into your computer, you’re actually plugging into the motherboard!  A computer case is basically just an enclosure for the motherboard.  Every computer component is mounted onto the motherboard and then the motherboard is mounted into the case.  The power supply is wired to the motherboard, and that’s how the CPU, Case Fans, RAM and audio card get power.

It is important to get a good, brand name motherboard.  Every thing you put on your computer will need to be connected by the motherboard.   Basically, a motherboard is the last thing you want to cheap out on.  When using a cheap/faulty motherboard, the best thing that can happen is for it not to work.  The worst thing is when you fry your $500 video card because you didn’t want to spend the extra $50 and get a decent motherboard.

Components you put on your motherboard:

CPU – When choosing a motherboard, you need to make sure it supports your CPU.  Each CPU has a socket type and each motherboard has a socket type.   They both need to be the same for your CPU to work on your motherboard.   In my case, I have an AM3 CPU, so I need to find an AM3 Socket Motherboard.

RAM – Ram simply classified by type (DDR, DDR2, DDR3) and speed(MHz).  For this system, I want to use DDR3 ram at speeds of 1600MHz.  My motherboard needs to support this.

PCI Slots – The PCI slots are expansion slots.  You can use the PCI slots for Video Cards, Audio Cards or Network Cards.  PCI is classified as:

PCI-E – PCI Express.  PCI-E is used as an expansion slot.  PCI-E often has a multiplier to go along with it, such as x16 or x8.  When selecting a video card, you want to have one PCI-E x16 slot open.  The higher the multiplier on a PCI-E slot, the more data that can be transferred per second.

PCI – The father of PCI-E.  Data transfers on these slots are slower than PCI-E.  An older technology, more expansion cards will use PCI-E.  PCI slots usually do not contain a multiplier.

So which motherboard do I choose?

The Asus M4A79XTD EVO AM3 AMD 790X ATX AMD Motherboard.

So why did I choose this specific model?  Reasons are sorted from most important to least.

It supports AM3 CPU’s.  This is a major thing, since i’ll be including an AM3 CPU in this build.

It supports DDR3 RAM.  Another major thing.  If i’m going to use DDR3 RAM, my motherboard needs to support it.

It’s made by ASUS.  ASUS is a big player in the computing world.   They are known for their great support and reliable products.

It has a lot of good user reviews.  Using my reference site(Newegg.ca), I looked up on the reviews and was pleased with what I saw.  http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131402&cm_re=ASUS_EVO-_-13-131-402-_-Product

It has nice colours. The entire board’s colors just look nice, compared to the yellows and browns of some other motherboards i’ve seen.

Next up will be RAM!

-Jordan